Fact-finding mission Botanischer Garten
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Thursday 25 March 2010 03:10

At the Bürgersprechstunde der Altonaer FDP-Fraktion
one of the Probleme vor Ort brought up by this old
fellow (so old his phone number has only 6 digits)
concerned the mythical Botanischer Garten.
Travelling by S-Bahn between Blankenese and Altona
every time this place is mentioned as payoff for
the name of the Klein Flottbek station, but I had
never bothered to visit that garden. So now I
decided to check it out, and having seen Moonraker
recently might have had something to do with it as
well.

The issue would be that it's not that
straightforward to find the garden.

We arrive from the south side of the station Klein
Flottbek. It's just a station on the Altona -
Blankenese line, but the difference is that the
tracks are on ground level.

Tracks on ground level means the passengers have to
go below ground level to cross the tracks to get on
the central platform, and this crossing can also be
used by pedestrians to get to the other side of the
tracks.

Passengers coming from the platform have to go down
into the tunnel to exit the station on the north or
the south side of the tracks. The elevator has been
installed recently. For the Botanischer Garten we
have to go to the north exit.

You don't need to be Colin Forbes to see what is
confusing here at the north exit. If you wan't to
go to the Botanischer Garten, which way to go?

If you're in a wheelchair it's easy. To the left
are stairs.

To the right is a long slope for people in
wheelchairs to reach the Biocentre and the
Botanischer Garten. But since it's the preferred
route to go to the Baron-Voght-Straße and the bus
station for everybody it doesn't appear to be some
wheelchair only special route.

At the top of the slope there is indeed the busy
bus station. But where is the Botanischer Garten?

The Botanischer Garten is real close, but if you
want to get there you would have to try to cross
the cul de sac where the busses turn, and where you
could get killed twice by the same bus.

Back on the left side of the end of the tunnel the
stairs lead to the much cuter zebra crossing.

What the sign in the tunnel didn't make clear is
that people who are able to use the stairs should
go up the stairs and use the zebra crossing to get
to the Biocenter and the Botanischer Garten, and
only people who for some reason can't use the
stairs should go right, up the slope, then do a
U-turn at the top and go back along the length of
the slope to reach the zebra crossing at the top of
the stairs.

Having crossed the street safely we now have to
find the Botanischer Garten. Which seems to be easy
since there is a botanically shaped sign pointing
us in the right direction.

Another sign is luring us in the wrong direction
however.

Proud of their Botanischer Garten the university
claims they are also the garden. Which is probably
right if you're a professional botanic or botanic
professor.

It seems that the university has it's own entrance
to the Botanischer Garten, so people with the right
badges can indeed follow these signs and get into
the garden, so technically the signs are not wrong.
But the average garden visitor without a badge has
to find the other entrance.

From the hiking track along the polo club there are
also typically blending-in-with-the-background
signs which might not be very optimal.

Back on track this sign makes sense. It's the
entrances we're interested in, not the
organizational units of the university. There is
one place, but two seperate entrances.

And we finally made it to the entrance of the
Botanischer Garten. To bad the garden closes one
hour before sunset so we had to skip that after
finding it.

Yes, the sign at the north end of the tunnel is
confusing and after that the mix of flows doesn't
help.

by Roland van Ipenburg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ipenburg/blog/posts/dull/2010/03/25/fact-finding-mission-botanischer-garten/